


if you ran away (come back home)

by lavi0123



Series: lavi does maiko halloweek 2020 [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fall Maiko Week 2020, Mai (Avatar) Needs A Hug, Mai (Avatar)-Centric, Prompt: Childhood, but still canon compliant sorta? i guess it's more like "could be canon", features the heart-shaped rock that should've been canon, i should just add that to all my writing ever tbh, no beta we die like lu ten, pretty much covers a few key points of their childhood, since canon doesn't exactly disprove what's in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27265747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavi0123/pseuds/lavi0123
Summary: "Mai didn’t consider herself a very emotional person. She wasn’t allowed to be, nor did she really want to be.But by far, no one presented as much of a challenge to her emotions as one Prince Zuko."Love always starts somewhere, and here is how Mai begins to fall for Zuko. A few snippets from Mai's childhood, from the fountain scene up to the infamous Agni Kai.
Relationships: Azula & Mai (Avatar), Mai & Ty Lee (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: lavi does maiko halloweek 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1990834
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53
Collections: Fall Maiko Week 2020





	if you ran away (come back home)

Mai didn’t consider herself a very emotional person. She wasn’t allowed to be, nor did she really want to be, after meeting Ty Lee and Azula in primary school and deciding that emotions were more trouble than they were worth. Emotions led to anger, jealousy, miscommunication...and the possibility of being taken advantage of. Maybe her parents were on to something.

She was indisputably Ty Lee’s friend. Though she wasn’t overly fond of the younger girl’s excessive optimism, she had to admit, there was a certain charm to Ty Lee that drew people to her, resistance to which would be futile.

As for Azula...Mai wasn’t sure she really had _friends_ , but rather _followers_. And was it really friendship if Azula was another reason for Mai to fear showing emotion?

(Her parents would say _yes_ if she told them all these things. They _did_ say it, every time they shoved her towards Azula and Ty Lee, though mostly Azula. It was slow-going, but she was learning to put less stock in what they said these days. Especially since they started stuffing her into dresses with too many frills, and makeup that felt pasty and unnatural on her skin, and forced her to sit through boring dinners with boring people about boring things).

Sure, she often felt the urge to laugh or even crack a smile around Ty Lee, one that grew stronger with every time they spent time together, but with Azula always close at hand or ear, she dared not risk it. The few times she dared to be vulnerable with anyone, she always paid the price, and for a while, it was easy to remind herself of this.

But by far, no one presented as much of a challenge to her emotions as one Prince Zuko.

She liked to think she was eloquent and refined; she prided herself on it. But around him, her words stuck in her throat, and her cheeks flushed. If he was disgusted by it, he did an excellent job of hiding it, which surprised her because he wasn’t very good at hiding anything. He didn’t make much effort to hide what he thought of Ty Lee’s overexuberance, for example, and on a few occasions, Mai rebuked him for it. To her surprise, Zuko didn’t scowl at her for it, or dismiss her words–rather, he seemed to take them to heart, and Mai wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Zuko, it seemed, was full of surprises. He intrigued her, and he made her feel safe in a way she didn’t feel with anyone else.

She never intended to let Azula know that. But the young princess was observant and quick, so one hint of a blush one day from Mai was enough.

“Now, here’s the way it goes,” Azula explained to an annoyed preteen Zuko, dragging Mai to the middle of the fountain and placing an apple on her head. Mai pursed her lips and tried not to show her trepidation. “Try to knock the apple off the other person's head, like this.” She shoved out her index and middle finger, shooting out a plume of flame that set the apple aflame.

Mai gasped, looking up at the apple in worry, hoping it wouldn’t burn through her hair. Her mother would be so disappointed if she came back with singed hair, and a disappointed mother was not something she wanted to deal with right now.

Zuko, however, seemed to only have eyes for her, and he ran towards her with alarming speed, She cried out, trying to stop him–really, was he _trying_ to humiliate her?–but he kept running, then pushed them both into the fountain.

“Ugh!” Mai scowled, cheeks flushing a deeper red as she struggled against Zuko’s weight on her.

Azula laughed, sharing a grin with Ty Lee, and a sharp lance of betrayal lanced through Mai’s heart. “See, told you it would work!”

Zuko took that moment to leave, and Mai rose to her feet in fury. “You guys are just...ugh!”

Ty Lee looked regretful at that, but before she could speak, Azula interjected with a scoff.

“Oh, get over yourself. It was just a game.”

And so it was. If Mai were more like Ty Lee, or even Zuko, she’d continue to scowl and pout until Azula eventually did something–distract, threaten, it didn’t really matter. But Mai was not Ty Lee, nor was she Zuko, so she sighed, let out her anger, and schooled her face back into neutrality.

Azula’s satisfied smirk returned, and she grabbed Mai’s hand. “Come on! There’s a place for you to dry off, then I’ve got something _much_ more exciting planned than reading under a tree all day.”

***

Over the next two years, Mai saw more of Zuko. He seemed to want to befriend her for some odd reason, though she couldn’t place why. Perhaps he felt sorry for her? If so, Mai would have to put a stop to it immediately. She would not be pitied, especially not by someone she thought so highly of.

But if Zuko was pitying her, he was certainly putting a lot of effort into it. He would constantly sit with her, talk with her about whatever he could come up with. She wasn’t much of a talker, but he didn’t seem to mind, filling the silences easily with his quick, awkward chatter.

On one such occasion, he was talking about a letter he’d received from his uncle, the same day as the fountain incident.

“The way he described the walls, they seemed like nothing I’ve ever seen! I know the Siege wasn’t a success, and...and we’re not really supposed to talk about it..but I wanna show you something.” He grinned at her, as though imparting some deep secret.

Despite herself, she leaned forward. “What is it?”

His eyes lit up at finally making her speak, but he didn’t comment on it, instead unsheathing a dagger from his belt. “Ta-da! Straight from Ba Sing Se, where it was made!”

Mai’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of it. It wasn’t her sort of weapon–too unwieldy to throw–but she could appreciate the careful, deliberate craftsmanship. Not many weapons were made so lovingly anymore, and if they were, they were never used for anything but wanton destruction.

But this dagger in Zuko’s hands didn’t scare her the way it might have in Azula’s. It gave her a strange sort of courage, knowing that this was Zuko’s weapon to wield.

Well, that and the broadswords, at which he was quickly becoming more skilled.

***

Zuko grinned over at her, lowering his swords. “Am I boring you, _Lady Mai_?”

“Believe me,” she retorted, looking up from her book to regard him with a slight smirk, “if I were bored, _Prince Zuko_ , I wouldn’t still be sitting here.”

“You could read anywhere in the palace,” he wondered. “Why here? You can’t possibly be focusing on the book and me at once.”

“How arrogant of you,” she teased, “to think I’m here to watch you fight a _training dummy_.”

“Then...why are you here?”

She shrugged. “Just a feeling, I guess.”

“Okay…” he regarded her curiously before asking, “did you...want to spar?”

“If I wanted to spar, I’d ask to spar.”

Silence fell over them both, and Zuko only hesitated a few moments longer before picking up his swords and attacking the dummy again. She wondered how long it would take him to notice the weak spot on the dummy’s left side.

***

A few months later, during a vacation to Ember Island, she left her parents’ house just after breakfast, calling back a warning not to expect her back before dinner. Her mother had shouted something back–something about dignitaries or nobles or whatever–Mai couldn’t be bothered to remember. Maybe she’d get dinner someplace else tonight, she certainly had the money for it.

The waves felt cool against her ankles, and she sighed, letting herself smile. They were still recognized on Ember Island, but not as much as the royals, and she’d perfected the perfect commoner disguise to allow herself to blend in. It meant that in moments like these, she wasn’t Ukano’s Perfect Daughter or the Princess’s Close Friend. She was just an ordinary almost-teenage girl, out for a walk on the beach.

Not just on the beach, for that matter–she loved to explore all sorts of crevices and nooks, where no one would think to look for a noble’s daughter.

Something struck her foot as she walked, and she frowned, looking down to see a black rock, looking for all the world like some sort of sponge. Picking it up revealed that it was, indeed, a rock, though a softer one than most. She might have dropped it and continued on if not for the shape of it: a heart, most unusual for a rock, and definitely deliberate. But who would carve a rock this soft, and why?

She tucked it into the folds of her clothes, deciding perhaps she’d find a use for it later.

“Mai!”

She startled, whirling to come face-to-face with her scowling mother. “Mother! I...I said I wasn’t going to be home before dinner–”

“I told you to come home _early_ , we’re having lunch with your father’s friend’s brother!” Her mother’s eyes blazed. “Come along now. Your father is making your excuses, but we mustn't be too late. We’ll deal with your punishment later.”

What else was she to do but follow?

***

“What do you mean, you’re leaving?”

Ty Lee shrugged with a forced smile, dragging her foot back and forth across the dirt. “I mean what I said, Mai. I’m setting off to join the circus.”

“But...but why?” Mai struggled to come up with a reason why Ty Lee would be doing this. “Aren’t you happy here?”

“Of course!” Her voice jumped an octave too high, and Mai’s eyes narrowed, but Ty Lee continued without noticing. “But my aura’s always pinker in the air than on the ground, though I’m not quite sure why. I can’t do that here, not as much as I want, but I can do that in the circus. It’s my calling, Mai.”

She wanted to fight Ty Lee. Wanted to argue, and cry, and scream, _What do you know about callings? You talk so much about auras and feelings where anyone can hear...but you’ve never done anything this reckless. How could you be so reckless on nothing but a whim? How could you do this? How could you leave me?_

But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She was Ukano’s Perfect Daughter and the Princess’s Close Friend (soon to be her Best Friend, and something cold seized her heart in a vice grip at that realization). She was meant to nod and give small smiles, and accommodate everyone at or above her in rank. And it wouldn’t be fair to guilt Ty Lee like that–she meant no harm, and Mai knew it, even if it hurt all the same.

So she smiled a little and said, “Well, if it’s your calling, then don’t let me stop you. Or Azula, for that matter.”

Ty Lee squealed, lurching forward to hug Mai tightly. “Thank you, Mai!”

Mai swallowed back her tears. “Of course, Ty Lee. What are friends for?”

***

“Banished?”

Azula nodded, with a solemnity Mai didn’t believe. “I’m afraid so. He spoke out of turn at a war meeting overseen by father, then refused to fight in the resulting Agni Kai! He’s lucky he didn’t get himself killed, the absolute idiot.”

Mai had so many questions, but the one that came out was, “What...what was the meeting about?”

“Who cares?” Azula scoffed. “I just figured you should know. Since you love him and all.”

“I...I don’t–”

“Oh, don’t give me that, Mai. We’re all each other has now.” Azula smirked. “Who would I tell?”

There was no shortage of people Azula would tell, just for the satisfaction of telling a secret, but even if she didn’t, she would hold it over Mai and Zuko forever. Mai wouldn’t allow that; she couldn’t. Azula could humiliate her all she wanted, but Mai would never allow her to drag Zuko into their problems.

“You must be thinking of when we were younger,” Mai replied, forcing her voice into an even tone. “At the fountain? That was two years ago. A lot has changed since then.”

Azula shrugged. “So it has. But you can’t fool me that easily. I know you still have feelings for him.”

“Maybe I did, once. But that’s over now. He’s banished...and everyone knows you can’t love a traitor.”

Azula hummed. “I’m impressed with you, Mai. You’re taking this a lot better than I expected.”

Mai smirked. “Yeah, well, it’s like you said, Azula. We’re all each other has now. Who am I going to trust if not you?”

“A very fair point, dear friend of mine.” She grinned. “Well, I’m glad it’s not weighing so heavily on you. You’re much more interesting when you feel something. Shall we go spar, to take our minds off of it?”

“You go on ahead,” Mai replied. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

Azula shrugged and darted off, presumably to train some more and gain an advantage before Mai arrived. Mai, on the other hand, reached into the folds of her clothes to squeeze the rock she kept there. She always kept it in the same place on her person, afraid that her parents or Azula might find it if she kept it anywhere else, and tears welled in her eyes at the remembrance of where it should’ve been at this moment.

She had meant to give it to Zuko, at some point, to thank him for his friendship. That was what friends did for each other, right? They gave each other gifts. Especially when one of them had a crush on the other and wanted to say it without... _saying_ it.

But now...now it was all ruined. Zuko had gotten himself banished over some _stupid_ war meeting and some _stupid_ form of compassion during, of all things, an _Agni Kai_ –

She gasped at a sudden pain in her hand and withdrew it to find a few dots of red with scrape marks all around. She’d been squeezing the rock too hard, she supposed. How reckless of her.

She buried the rock under layers and layers of clothing in Zuko’s drawers. Even if someone found it, she no longer cared. If Zuko ever returned, she’d take the blame. If he didn’t....

Well, then Mai had just learned a valuable lesson, hadn’t she?

**Author's Note:**

> Finally posted something to AO3 after half a year! Figures ATLA would be the fandom to pull me out of my slump XD
> 
> But in all seriousness, I fell for Maiko in Book 3. Not at first, but the more I saw of them, the more little cues I picked up on, the more I adored them. I'm especially interested in their childhood because we really don't know much other than the fountain scene, so I wanted to flesh that out. Hopefully I hit a good balance between dialogue and internal monologue.
> 
> I also wanted to write something Mai-centric because she's so different from who I am, so I wanted to try to get into her head and figure out what she must've been thinking during all of this. I can't imagine any of it was easy for her.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
